


Brothers in Arms

by Vana



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alcoholism, Brotherhood Without Banners - Freeform, Cancer, Domestic Fluff, Gen, OK stop with the tags, Queerplatonic Relationships, arya is a baby hacker of course, beric is heaven-sent, but we love him, i just learned this term because of this prompt, non-romantic life partners, thoros is a hot mess, those are the serious tags goodnight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-28 04:42:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2719109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the got-exchange. The prompt was basically: daily life between an overworked Beric and Thoros, but nothing shippy. Needless to say, this was a bit of a challenge ;) Thank you to CommaSplice, shadowsfan, ididntcomeheretoeatfruit, and Sir_Bedevere for brainstorming with me.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Brothers in Arms

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the got-exchange. The prompt was basically: daily life between an overworked Beric and Thoros, but nothing shippy. Needless to say, this was a bit of a challenge ;) Thank you to CommaSplice, shadowsfan, ididntcomeheretoeatfruit, and Sir_Bedevere for brainstorming with me.

Early winter evenings in White Harbor brought a brisk wind, and ice that stung the throats of passersby who had forgotten their scarves or mufflers when the day was still bright. The cold stars were just piercing through the white fog of the season, but a warm yellow light shone from the window of the third-floor apartment in the Warehouse District. Inside, Thoros and Beric idled in their living room, browsing their iPads, listening to sitar music and waiting for their Qohorik take-out to come.

These Eastern things made Thoros, who was between two 20-hour hospital shifts, both more and less homesick for Myr at the same time. Beric Dondarrion, for his part, was exhausted and needed to work -- the stack of legal files was growing ever larger in his bedroom-slash-home office -- but at the same time he worried about Thoros and the hollowness of his eyes and the way he looked longingly after Arya Stark, Gendry Waters and Ned Dayne, who were headed to some rooftop martini bar despite the freeze in the air. It was lust for the martinis, not the young Brotherhood Without Banners members, that put that look in his blue eyes, Beric knew.

And that would simply not do.

 

* * *

 

_April 2008_

“This one sounds a right sodden treat,” said Anguy with his brogue so heavy that Beric almost couldn’t understand it, “but he says he can raise some Big I Am in Myr and get us sorted straightaway.”

“Huh?” Gendry was lost. “He what?" 

“You’re a moron,” said Arya Stark, whose ID said she was eighteen and she was a good enough hacker that Beric told himself it didn’t matter she was really fifteen. All for the cause, he reminded himself when he had doubts. “He’s _saying_ ,” the girl went on, “that this Thoros he just got done talking to is drunk as hell and that he’ll talk to an important guy and fix it with the police for us.”

“How does she do that?” Gendry wondered.

Beric ignored him. “Thank you, Anguy, Arya. With any luck, Thoros of Myr will get his ... errand taken care of and we won’t hear from him again, but he has been very helpful.” 

Anguy shook his head sadly. “Not long for this world that one, if he keeps up getting slewed the way he is.”

“Not long for this world even if he doesn’t, unless he gives up the creepy religious stuff and goes legit,” chimed in Arya. “Some of the crap in his email ...”

Gendry rounded on her, still stung from the “moron” comment. “Like the Brotherhood is so legit!”

“Our mission is true, though our methods be unorthodox,” murmured Beric. But when he spoke, however quietly, they all turned to listen. He had that way about him and he was never quite used to it. “The Brotherhood Without Banners does the work that more law-abiding outfits are too afraid to. The Brotherhood is actually the one of the most legitimate groups in the world.”

 

_August 2010_

Thoros came to the Brotherhood the first time in person drunk, despairing, and stinking of eight -- or was it nine? -- days in the bars and the streets of White Harbor in high summer, when the mosquitos reigned over the muggy nights and hipsters with beer held sway during the days. With his red topknot and scraggly beard and bad teeth, Thoros was amused as hell to find he fit right in -- right up until the moment he tottered his way into the Brotherhood Without Banners headquarters and instead of the usual assortment of dirty anarchists, the first person he laid eyes on was a small but tidy teenage girl at a computer. The second was Beric Dondarrion, shaven and besuited, straight from his paralegal job. “Oh, no,” Thoros had said aloud. “Yeah, no. This isn’t gonna work.” He turned on his heel and almost left.

“What isn’t?” Beric said. “And how did you know where to find us?”

The girl at the Mac had paid them no mind and continued not to. Thoros needed another drink, even one of those horrible Milwaukee’s Bests would do but some heavy red wine would be even better. It had been several hours since the last drink and he should have known he was pushing it by waiting this long. His chest was starting to do that wheezy thing when he was on the verge of a panic attack and he had expected flags and reefers but instead he got _this_ place, and it was all too clean, too sterile, and too Northern. Where was the guy with the accent who had taken out the college rapist of Oldtown with a fucking bow and arrow -- first in the dick, then in the eye? Where were the enforcers built like prizefighters who could wring information from even the slickest Lorathi? Where the hell was _Needle_ , the best hacker of the age? Why did Beric Dondarrion, the leader of the whole thing, look more at home on Wall Street than coordinating vigilante attacks on people who took advantage of the weak? “You can’t see us, but we can see you. No matter where you go, or what passport you carry,” he’d heard Dondarrion say once over an encrypted phone line, “Lysene, Sothoryosi, Skagosi ... you prey on the weak, the Brotherhood Without Banners will hunt you down.”

Thoros himself had had a lot too much of being weak and preyed on. He had stumbled into the Brotherhood’s orbit by accident, overhearing something in an elevator at a job he was just about to be fired from, making himself useful for some quick cash. But those words Dondarrion spoke were what made Thoros seek out the Brotherhood himself. Now, though, it was all over. He didn’t belong here and he would go back where he came from and try to find something else that made him feel that strong again.

As for how he knew where to find them? Fighting off the chattering of his teeth with the promise of a drink, he turned to flash a shaky grin. “That’s something I don’t share with suits.”

He heard the girl at the computer snort, and waited for the inevitable angry retort from Dondarrion. Instead, the man erupted in a laugh, one that lasted so long and was so hard he almost choked on it. “Arya,” he gasped. “Fuck! Get me some water.”

“Don’t have any water,” she said. “I just have this,” and she tossed him a hip flask.

Beric took a long drink, coughed again and looked at Thoros with his eyes watering but his smile wide. “Drink?”

This was more like it. Thoros caught the flask in midair with his trembling hands, took a swig, and settled in.

 

_January 2012_

One and a half days into the new year and Thoros was already losing his mind. Beric didn’t know how long he could do this, but he kept his hands on Thoros’ arms, feeling the veins fairly jumping beneath the skin.

“You can do this,” he said. “You need to do this...”

“Why, Beric,” Thoros said. “Why.” 

“You want to go back to school. You want to get your degree. You want to go into pathology...”

“Why.” Thoros held onto the edge of the chair arms and Beric feared he would break them. _We can buy new chairs._

“You want to solve medical mysteries. You want to figure out why people die.”

“No. I don’t care,” Thoros whispered. “I don’t care about that.”

 _It’s the addiction talking_. Thoros had to go cold turkey, he knew, or he would never get sober. But it didn’t help the sting Beric felt.

“You don’t care about people with diseases?” He chose his words carefully. He was a lawyer; he was a part-time outlaw vigilante. He knew how to choose words. “I think you do care, Thoros. I think you care about why people get these things and how to prevent them. I think, for instance,” he looked straight into his friend’s bloodshot, wild eyes, “that you care about brain cancer ... and why someone might get it ... and how you might help it go away.”

That did it. Beric could almost see the gears turning over in Thoros’ mind and he knew he had flipped some switch, something that would make Thoros be able to hold on for another hour, or half hour, or fifteen minutes.

They’d known each other for two years now and although that wasn’t long, they somehow knew everything there was to know: Beric’s sporadic headaches, Thoros’ wild hops from religion to religion. Beric’s addiction to work, Thoros’ to alcohol. Beric’s MRIs, Thoros‘ almost hysterical worry. The number of sexual partners they’d had (Beric: one, Thoros: more than he could remember but none he could specifically recall). The number of romantic partners they’d had (none). The number of times people had asked or insinuated, since they moved in together, that the two of them were a couple (uncountable). The things Thoros did to try to fill the emptiness and the way that none of it worked until med school and the Brotherhood. All of this hung between them like a brick, and Thoros looked like he had been hit with it.

Beric almost hated to bring up his own health. It felt like emotional blackmail. But Thoros was on the edge of flight toward the bottle, and this was the year he went sober. Together, on Christmas, with two glasses of good wine between them and Thoros’ med school application process all over the coffee table and Beric’s lab results filed neatly in a briefcase, they had decided, together, that this would be the year. Beric never thought of letting Thoros do it alone. He was a moderate drinker to begin with and it was the easiest decision in the world to give up his occasional cocktail for his best friend’s hopes, his ambitions -- his life, in truth.

Thoros was back to himself again, his eyes were calm, his voice was unbreaking. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

There were many such nights that month and that year, when Beric had talked Thoros through a rough patch, or a craving, or the flat-out DTs. Recovery was not quick but Beric didn’t give up hope, and now, there were even more days and nights when Beric had to simply make sure Thoros didn’t forget his Metro pass or his ID, float him for rent for a day or two until Thoros could locate his checkbook, or make sure that Thoros ate a halfway decent meal before he went back to the hospital.

“You do too much for me,” Thoros had said once, opening one eye when Beric covered him with a blanket after he’d fallen asleep on the couch, with patient files and medical journals and his own copious notes splayed out on his barrel chest and spilling out onto the floor. But he didn’t stay awake to hear Beric’s answer.

The headaches had been more frequent, and Beric had had to start turning down the lights because the brightness hurt his eyes. He had often been too fatigued to even help with some of the more extreme missions of the Brotherhood and had entrusted leadership to his second, a woman with a cold manner, raw voice and keener appetite for vengeance than Beric had ever had. Sometimes, he found himself wondering where the past few hours -- or half day -- had gone. It all added up, but he hadn’t gotten this far -- in his career, in the Brotherhood, or in his friendship with Thoros -- without believing that the good and pure and strong would prevail.

“Someday you’re going to save me from this,” Beric said to his friend, who snored like a snowplow and steadfastly refused to give up the work he knew had been laid for him. Beric cleared away that night’s dishes, checked his planner for tomorrow’s appointments, and then, in a rare moment of ease, simply let himself sit and watch the snow fall, inexorable and peaceful.

 

**The End**

 


End file.
